


pieces of heart

by intaglionyx



Category: Blaze Union, Yggdra Union
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-11
Updated: 2012-12-11
Packaged: 2017-11-20 21:00:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/589590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intaglionyx/pseuds/intaglionyx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Garlot's living space is more brightly and warmly decorated than your own. Red and gold hover at the edges of your vision wherever you look; this is such an uncanny representation of how you usually feel around him that you feel something like vertigo for the first few moments you spend standing in the doorway of his room."  </p>
<p>Nessiah, in a different kind of exile on a different kind of world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	pieces of heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [feralphoenix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/feralphoenix/gifts).



I.

Later, when years beyond count stand between then and now, the lies that became legends are flowery things scrawled in books and studied as _literature._ You find your reflection warped, refracted, and filtered through tiny black print in a typeface that makes you think of gothic spires. _The Fall of Aries_ – and the years beyond count are years enough that you know longer feel anything when you hear or read your old name – is something that anyone with a basic education can summarize. You have read it and heard it recited enough times that you can do so as well; it is so far from what you remember that it is easy to compartmentalize as just another myth. 

For the first few years, you tried to go back, tried to find a way to return home and set things right. The shock of the initial betrayal burned out your ability to trust. The following time spent searching in vain for answers ended your capacity for hope. Then: sleep. Ending things permanently was outside your power, you learned, but it was easy enough to just hover at the cusp of reincarnation.

Centuries passed. Things changed. The world became as complicated, interesting, and monstrous as your first home had been. You let yourself wake up.

II.

You don't meet him in a literature course. He is as voracious a reader as you have ever been, but you never see him with a work of fiction in his hand. You don't consciously wonder at it, but it does niggle at the back of your mind until, one day, you ask.

He tilts his head and runs the tips of his fingers along his smooth jawline in a light scratching motion, a gesture that always fills you with a desire to _touch_ so strong that it is almost a physical need. “I really don't know,” he eventually answers, which is no answer at all. He then looks up at you, stretching his lips to expose his teeth in a smile that reaches his eyes. “Do you want to go for a walk?”

As you move arm in arm alongside the campus green, with the edge of your skirt gently brushing the grass every so often, you come to a conclusion, if a temporary one. He speaks in a low voice of the way things should be, and as his fervor turns to something akin to rage, you realize that his passion will not allow for any distractions. For him, books are tools, whetstones with which to sharpen his mind into something he can use to cut through everything in his path. When you think of at least one of the things he would be studying had his interests turned to literature, you cannot help but approve of his choice, however unconscious it might be.

III.

Garlot's living space is more brightly and warmly decorated than your own. Red and gold hover at the edges of your vision wherever you look; this is such an uncanny representation of how you usually feel around him that you feel something like vertigo for the first few moments you spend standing in the doorway of his room. His desk is littered with origami flowers folded from goldenrod and scarlet paper. His bedsheets, shoved into a messy roll at the edge of his bed, are red. Even the drawings pinned to the walls seem to bear his colors. You tap one of these with a finger. “Did you...?”

He laughs once he understands what you are asking. “My younger sister,” he explains, and suddenly he is singing the praises of the young woman pictured in the sepia-toned photograph he pulls from his wallet. As he meanders from compliments to mentions of art schools and scholarships to a happy sort of silence, you say: “Your use of the phrase “younger sister” implies that she is not your only sibling. Do you have an older one?” 

You see the answer on his face – love mixed with grief – and regret asking.

IV.

To his credit, he doesn't ask you whether you believe in God, but rather: “So, what you believe in?” 

As you try to formulate an answer that will make sense to him, the golden hexagram that hangs from a chain around his neck catches your eye. Of all the things about and around him, this is the one thing that he has never spoken of. He makes no particular effort to hide it – occasionally it slips from behind his collar to hang in the open, and when it does, he makes no move to slip it back into place – but neither does he speak of it, which is notable to you. You find yourself growing curious.

“I'm not particularly religious,” you mutter – an answer as good as any you can give – then squeeze his large hand with your smaller one. “What about you? What do you believe in?” you ask, looking very pointedly at the symbol hanging against his heart.

To your surprise, he nods understandingly at your answer, and at your question, he smiles as though he has been waiting for you to ask it.

V.

When his fingers find your chin, your heart starts to hammer against your chest with an urgency that you haven't felt in more years than you can remember. His eyes, as close as you are, dominate your vision until he closes them and leans in. Your fingers curl against the base of his shirt's collar even as his hands come to rest at either side of the waist of your robes. 

VI.

When you ask him what happened to his older sister, his face goes tight and hard and his eyes narrow. You do not regret asking of her, this time; this is not merely a part of him, but something that has defined him and shaped him into the intense young man that you have grown so close to in so short a time. You raise a hand to rub gently at the base of his neck, and while he doesn't relax at the now-comfortable gesture, he does give you an appreciative glance before taking a breath. 

And – you were right. It did shape him, if not in quite the way you had expected. Suddenly, you know why the anger and frustration that occasionally flared out from behind his usually calm demeanor has seemed so familiar to you. Like you, he has felt the sickening, heart-choking rage that comes from hating someone you trusted, from hating someone and not having any real outlet for your anger.

VII.

He speaks of his family in a way that initially confuses you. In time, you come to realize that his definition of family, too, has been shaped by his experiences and by the people he has come to love. For him, family is love, regardless of that love's precise nature. When he looks at you, you understand without needing to be told that he considers you family.

You envy him for it, for that simple willingness to take a perfect stranger and invite him into his heart. Uncharacteristically, you feel something like guilt: for all your current feeling and affection toward him, you know that you could never have taken that first step.

VIII.

After, when your skin grows clammy with cooling sweat, you twist around in his arms to turn and look at him. His face looks more neutral than peaceful in the grip of sleep; as a sudden surge of unfamiliarity almost drives you to slip out of his grasp, his arms tighten around your slim shoulders and his expression turns strangely urgent. Or perhaps not so strangely. After all, you know him, now; the things you have learned about him in the past months and weeks and hours form a picture of him that is sufficient, if not complete. 

Despite your nature, you stop thinking. The scent of him, the warmth of his skin, the sound of his breathing and the movement of his chest against your shoulder form the boundaries of your world for at least as long as it takes you to drift off to a far more peaceful sleep than you are used to.


End file.
